NEEDS OF FAMILIES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19667, 27 June 1938, Page 7

NEEDS OF FAMILIES

POSITION IN BRITAIN

PLEA FOR < HNSIDERATION

ALLOW AXI 'MS SUGG ESTEI >

(British Official Wiri-less.) Kecd. 1.30 p.m. RUGBY, June 24. When the House of Commons was discussing the votes for the Ministry of Labour and the Unemployment Assistance Board, Mr. L. S. Amery drew attention to a statement in the last report of the board that the needs—assessed according to the board s minimum scales —of larger families among the workers in the lower wage grades was often exceeded by as much as 10s a week, the amount brought in by the wage earner when in employment.

Mr. Amery said that the board s duties and ' administration did not create an incentive to leave work and take relief. Those duties were frequently irreconcilable. Were they, as a nation, regarding the interests ol the growing generation, to decide that the wage system should take sonic account of the minimum needs of a family, or to be governed entirely by the notion that labour was simply a commodity whose price was settled by haggling in the open market? He" suggested that the only solution was to make some provision for the children of the nation, irrespective of the wage earned by the parents. In large families, children were the creators of and the sufferers from poverty. A very' large proportion of the children of the country were underfed and started life with all the odds weighted against them. Population trends reinforced the arguments lor a system of family allowance which would solve a most urgent problem from the viewpoint, not only of unemployment assistance, but also of building up tlie fitness of the nation and doing justice to a large number of people wiio, though no fault of their own, were destined to grow up underled. stunted, and unable to play a worthy part in the life of the nation. Mr. Amcry’s plea was supported from the Liberal benches, and Mr. Harold MacMillan, a Conservative, and Dr. linden Guest (Labour) spoke of other aspects of the issue. The Minister of Labour, Mr. Ernest Brown, replying, said that family allowances could be provided, first, by direct State grants; secondly, by adapting an insurance system to provide extra allowances for families of a certain size, with an assurance that the family would be paid those allowances, whether there was work or not; and, thirdly, by means of an industrial arrangement with the assistance, if necessary, of the Ministry of Labour’s industrial relations department.

The Minister referred to the progress of the movement for holidays with pay, which was described as remarkable. Since the appointment of a committee on the subject two years ago, a collective agreement covering 1,750,000 workers had been ratified which provided for holidays with pay.